Trina Machacek: A man’s wallet

For some unexplainable reason, during the past few weeks men’s wallets have been discussed around me. I don’t think it has much to do about me — well how did that happen?! But rather the fact that men don’t treat their wallets the same way a woman treats her wallet. For instance…

It was brought to my attention that this one guy has had a $100 bill in his wallet for years. He tried to tell me it had been in there for at least 10 years and I just laughed and laughed. I asked him why he has it and he of course said for emergencies. Like what kind of emergencies I asked. He said you know in case he needed to buy food or medicine in a pinch. I said and just in case you ever need to buy a last minute guilt gift for your wife and he smiled and agreed that the money could also be used to clear a black mark on his record too. And he laughed and laughed. But he wasn’t in any way going to relive himself of that green paper anytime soon. I suspect that after all that time his money is more of a pacifier than a security blanket.

Oh of course the moth thing came up a few times. You know. It goes like this. A man, usually a married man, gets so used to having everything he needs, wants and desires done for him, bought for him and waiting for him at home that he rarely finds a reason to open his wallet. So in the few and far between times that he does peel open the leather or vinyl or Heaven forbid Velcro, moths flutter to the outside world like they have never seen sunshine before. And we all laughed and laughed. But! Yes a dusty mothy “but.” HAHA. But I will admit that with the coming of age of the debit card men are finding it quite pleasant to open their wallets. Quite often and quite freely. Some wives and girlfriends did say sometimes a little too freely.

The talk of keeping track of all those debit receipts hit between eighty eight and one-oh-six on the Richter scale of moans and groans. It seems that those little white pieces of important information have a hard time finding their way back to the bookkeeper after each and every time a debit occurs. Causing a marriott of unfortunate occurrences. And we all laughed and laughed. To be honest and fair this loss of receipts happens on both sides of the fence. It just seemed more prevalent in the male gender because in my circle of friends most of the bookkeeping is done by the female of the species. Just saying.

Then the conversation often turned to the difference between a woman’s wallet and a man’s. First and foremost it was found that when a man is ill and hospital stays become needed the woman always, (yes I’m going out on a limb and say always) the woman always carries the man’s wallet in her purse. She is at the ready to dig in and get insurance cards and ID and other needed information from that wallet. However. If the tables are turned does the man carry the woman’s wallet? Nope! Poor little lady is left to carry her own stuff. Oh and chances are eight times out of 10 she is probably going to be asked if she has any gum or mints with her while she is lying on a gurney with her purse perched on top of her tummy! Again we all laughed and laughed. And then the women sighed with realization and resignation.

It’s just another way of the world. As a group the women in these discussions really wouldn’t want to see a man carting her purse around. Most of us are really not a big fan of belly bags for men to carry our stuff when it is needed to be carried by the man either. We as a whole thought that our mutual dislike for something hanging around our middles instead of over our shoulders just might have something to do with the size of our own bellies. And we just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram or at itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!